LastMinuteLucie and the search for time

Posts tagged ‘embroidery’

I have designated January as the month for upcycling and repairing as I have a large pile of clothing requiring one or the other and I thought it was about time I got underway!

My newest jeans (bought in July) have started to wear at the top of the inside leg – trousers always wear here which is annoying, but at least it’s fixable.

I used Wenko Stoff-Fix to iron a piece of old blue bandana on the inside of the leg where the holes were beginning. I then tried my best, with ordinary thread to darn the right side of the jeans leg. You can see by the photo that I am not particularly skilled. I just wanted to make it stronger.

After that I thought why not add a bit of pazzazz to the area, embroidering lighter blue flowers – ok I’m likely to be the only one who knows it’s there, but as Elbert Hubbard said, “Art is not a thing, it is a way.”

Some time ago I told oldest daughter I would make her a pencil case for her new school term. We discussed using crisp packets as a fabric – melting them and perhaps covering them in sticky backed plastic. I got as far as experimenting with some and the melting part was quite successful. And then they went AWOL.

I’m not sure if I have mentioned how much of a Black Hole my house is. I’m considering inviting Professor Brian Cox over to check it out….but what with holidays, decorating, general moving of stuff my experimental piece just disappeared.

My daughter starts school tomorrow – so obviously today was the day I finally made the pencil case.

I’d looked at beautifully made zipped cases on Etsy and various blogs many times and always felt I could manage it, but until today I had never tried.

I used my trusty stash of denim circles for the body of the pencil case and material that was a duvet cover of mine when I was a teenager for the lining (me, keep stuff for years?? No!). I also have a whole box of zips – I inherited these from lovely husband’s great aunt who lived to be 98. She basically took all the useful bits off before putting clothes out when they got too old to wear – the glorious orange one came from there.

My daughter loves cooking cake so that’s where I took my inspiration for the design. After a bit of a false start I got going using tiny scraps of fabric satin stitched onto the denim by machine.